She’s Beautiful

She’s Beautiful
Kara

The girl above me gasps and turns to say something before another girl pops her head out to look at us, black eyes staring in disbelief. 

“Your Majesty! Oh! Ada, you did it.” Both girls disappear, and we hear steps thundering behind the walls, before a wooden door appears and is flung open. Both girls are on their knees, heads bowed.

“No, no, please stand. We are on borrowed time here.” Ada murmurs, ushering the girls to their feet and backwards so we can all file into the narrow entryway.

“Of course, sorry, we’ve been excited to meet you our whole lives. Come along, she’s up here.” The silver-eyed girl says, before turning and leading us up the stairs, where it opens into a large loft-style room. There’s a large 4-poster bed draped in silks of different bright colors, with flowers decorating every flat surface. I want nothing more than to run to the bed and see my mom for the first time, but I hold myself back. I turn to look at the women that had taken care of my mom for so many years. 

“I don’t know how to begin to thank either of you for what you’ve done for my family.” The girl with the silver eyes looks down and scuffs her foot. 

“We don’t deserve your thanks; we weren’t able to revive her.” I reach out and grab her hands.

“You kept her safe and took care of her; you deserve more thanks than I know how to show, umm, sorry, I don’t know your name.” She blushed, and her sister laughed.

“Sorry, where are our manners. I’m Tamara.” The twin with the silver eyes started.

“And I’m Samara.” The sister with the black eyes finished. 

“It’s wonderful to meet you both, and I have to say thank you again, and it will be far from the last thank you that you get after we get out of here.” Samara’s eyes sharpened, and she looked to Ada.

“What’s the plan here?” 

“We’re going to carry her as far as we need to to be able to open a portal back to the Forgotten Realm.” Tamara laughed.

“How do you expect us to carry her while protecting ourselves? We’re leaving ourselves wide open to attack.” Samara snapped and glared at her.

“That’s not going to work; we can feel the beast coming our way already. We have to open a portal here.”

“You were the ones who said it was shielded and we couldn’t.”

“And we couldn’t as long as the shield was in place, but didn’t you see what Kara did? She didn’t open the shield; she absorbed it and its magic.” I blink, confused.

“So I have a magical shield now?” Tamara nods and peeks her eyes towards the window. She looks at Samara, who nods softly, before Tamara holds her hand out, and a small ball of light appears and shifts into the shape of three small fae children, dancing around a fire.

“The shield is gone, our magic is back, which means a portal can be opened here, and we can leave before the creatures make it here. I can feel them tearing through the forest heading this way.” I have to get word to the others that the plan has changed, but I’m running out of time. I wonder if I can project the shield around the tower to buy us more time. I reach inside myself, searching for the core of magic inside me as Hera taught me. During our training, I learned what every thread of my magic was, and learned to identify them by their color and surge, so finding the new one should be easy. Sure enough, twisting inside my core, wrapping itself protectively around each strand. I focused on the pearlescent shimmering tendril, coaxing it out of me and wrapping it tightly around the tower, feeling the pulsing power from the Realm cut off, knowing I was successful in shielding us for now. I open my eyes and see all eyes on me, mouths agape.

“What? Did I sprout an extra head or something?”

“How did you do that? Am I hallucinating? Did you guys see the shield bubble out from inside her, too?” Tamara rambles before Samara covers her mouth with her hand.

“Shut up, we all saw it. What do we do next?”

“I need to reach out to the groups and let them know the plan has changed, and they don’t have to keep the distraction up as long.” Sven and Gael laugh sharply before returning to their act of being made of stone.

“Why’s that funny?”

“The men will be disappointed; it’s been too long since we’ve had a reason to fight this way,” Gael explains.

“Well, there will be plenty of fighting for all soon, so they should be saving their strength for what's to come.” I quip, causing Sven to smirk, before hiding his face with his hand in a fake cough.

“Every man under your rule will fight with everything they have, no matter if the battle lasts an hour or a year. The men could face a new battle each day, and they’d be just as bloodthirsty on the last day as on the first. When we return, may I suggest adding history to one of your training classes? Knowing the past can help prevent a repeat in the future.” Niall says softly, cocking his ear towards the window, alertly listening for noises. 

“I’ll have to do that, Niall. I’m going to contact the others so we can get out of here and go home. Which is now your home too.” I look pointedly at the twins, smiling. They nod and begin to gather their sparse belongings.

‘There has been a change of plans, I’ll stay linked so we can open the portals together, so we make sure everyone makes it home. The barrier preventing magic is…gone, so I can open the portal here without having to carry Mother to get her away.’ I say through the link to the leader of the battle groups.

‘How is the barrier just gone?’ Bjorn asks incredulously. 

‘Um, because Kara is a beast!’ Laine reumbles through the connection, eliciting laughter from us all. 

‘Let us know when it’s time to leave, we’ll be ready.’ I leave the link open and walk slowly to the bed where my mother has lain for the last 18 years. Samara and Tamara pull back the curtains, and tears sting my eyes.

“She’s beautiful,” I whisper, afraid to disturb her.

“You look just like her, Kara,” Ada says softly, placing her hand on my shoulder. I squeeze her hand and wave my other over the bed, watching as it slowly floats a few inches off the ground. 

‘Let’s go home, everyone, portals open now!’ I shout through the link, feeling my shield snap back inside me as a portal shimmers open in front of us. We didn’t have to sneak out the way we did in, so I can feel the power surge as multiple portals open at once. We step through after nudging the bed through, and stumble as we step back into our Realm.